Clear Skies And Clear Minds
by J.P-NU
Summary: Set during episode 43. Jack Atlas quietly muses to himself about the nice weather and the deepest workings of his mind. One-Shot. Small amounts of JackxCarly, naturally.


_The sky had never been so clear._

Sitting all alone on the rooftop, staring upwards, he found himself lost in the sort of absent-minded tangents he had never really had time for before. On the one hand, it annoyed him as he found himself thinking sillier and sillier things, at least in his mind, but it was also a relief. It meant he really was free from all the pressure. He no longer had to focus on being the pursued, now he could pursue whatever pleased him, something which he intended to in the upcoming fight.

He glanced around towards the surrounding gardens and the other sections of the mansion. Whilst the twins were out of sight, no doubt goofing around inside the large mansion Godwin kept, he could see Yusei sitting by himself, drenched in melancholic thoughts about Kiryu, and in the distant corner of the rose garden, Aki Izayoi was strolling around, the nihilistic state of mind she had been in not so long ago temporarily at bay. Whatever the case was, each and every one of them had doubt filling up the voids of their hearts, pulling them down.

Except Jack.

Jack Atlas did not have any qualms about the situation. It was a simple enough objective, go into the site of Old Momentum and defeat every last one of the Dark Signers. It was the destiny that their birthmarks had designated. That was the one thing that was truly preying on Jack's mind. Destiny. Godwin had fed him some words concerning his flight from Satellite and Yusei's pursuit two years afterwards, reducing it to a set path created by the Crimson Dragon. Jack just couldn't accept it. It was ludicrous to think the choices he had made, the sacrifices, had not been a willing offering he had made for greatness, it was the cost he had paid to be led by the mystical pied piper that was the Dragon's Birthmark. The road he had walked for the past two years, with no trace of his previous life save the ruins of a former friend's D-Wheel and his stolen card, and no piece of a new life. If destiny had forcibly led him along that path for the past few years, then Jack saw the only logical course of action to be powering along that path so that he was free from the limited direction and make his own destiny from then onwards.

Looking down on Yusei, Jack knew that he was conflicted for an appropriate reason, being forced into sending his former friend Kiryu back into the hell that Yusei had inavertedly put him through once before. Though, that said, Jack could not help but feel a small feeling of satisfaction at Yusei's dilemma. Jack had lost everything to become a King in Neo-Domino City, however Yusei had managed to follow him without losing anything. Not only had he made it through into the City with his friends and home to return to, he had also risen from the dirt to face the King himself, and then dethrone him in front of millions of people watching all over the globe. Now that Yusei was finally forced to make a tough decision that would change his life, Jack couldn't help but feel justice had been served. Having been friends since they were very young, Jack knew Yusei better than he would have liked to, Jack also saw the fear in Yusei's eyes as clear as day whenever someone talked about Kiryu. It was not just Kiryu, nor the strength of his Earthbound God, it was the concept of losing a duel where his life was on the line. Jack could relate perfectly. Though he acknowledged there was certainly a difference between the cases, Jack saw Yusei as he was now to Jack was after losing to Yusei. That one duel, that single turn of a card, had cost Jack everything. He had been reduced to a nobody who had no idea how the world outside his luxury home worked, even something simple like riding the Bullet Train. Every day he had sat on his self-pitying behind feeling sorry for himself because he had lost the life he had abandoned everything to secure in one fell swoop. The words 'Speed Spell - Final Attack' had signalled the true death of King Jack Atlas. Jack understood perfectly what Yusei was feeling, however that just angered him more. Yusei had escaped with his life and given the crash he had suffered, minimal injuries. The only thing scar Yusei had taken from the battle was the guilt he had from what happened with Kiryu.

As admittedly hypocritical as his aggravation with Yusei was, Jack saw a need to snap him out of it. He could not go into battle against Kiryu once again with his heart and mind in a state of unrest. Yusei needed something that would get him to stop pitying himself and focusing on the task at hand.

For Jack, that something had been Carly Nagisa. Carly had entered Jack's life at just the right moment. Looking back, he felt guilty for being so uncaring and distant to her initially. Carly had taken Jack into her cramped home with no questions asked and had tended to his every need. She had no reason to do it, which had puzzled Jack in the beginning. The more and more Jack stayed with Carly however, the more he began to see just what it was that made Carly special. The fact she wasn't. Carly was just a genuinely nice human being who wanted to help. That was the key that unlocked the door within Jack's mind and offered him a fresh start. All he needed was, not entirely selflessness, but willingness to perform selfless actions in order to achieve a selfish goal. That was why Jack would go into battle against the Dark Signers happy to fight whichever foe he was pitted against. He would do it so that he could free himself from the choke-hold his birthmark had over him, and to rescue Carly, which would aid the Signers' effort to save the world in the process.

Jack pulled out Carly's glasses, the keepsake of her he had recovered from the Arcadia Movement building. After watching Yusei's duel with Kiryu and hearing first-hand from Godwin that people's souls are sacrificed to the Earthbound Gods, Jack had deduced that Carly had been sacrificed to one of the two Earthbound Gods that had surrounded the skyscraper. That made whoever had either the Lizard or the Hummingbird his enemy, something he would figure out when the time came, but also the Earthbound God they possessed and whatever malevolent force sired the Dark Signers in the first place. He would save his friend no matter what.

"Friend…" Jack found himself quietly repeated. He half-heartedly scoffed and sighed in one breath. Despite the conflicted minds of everyone within Godwin's mansion, the skies remained clear. The sun had no obstacles stopping it's rays reaching the Earth. In any other situation it would have been counted as a good day weather-wise, however Jack saw it as such an inverted sense of pathetic fallacy it served to somewhat annoy him. He found himself become further annoyed at the ridiculous concept of his last musing. With a hefty sigh he stood up, stuffing Carly's glasses back into his coat pocket. It was time to sort his friend out. Jack cracked his knuckles. Although there was no doubt in his mind about his mission, he had to acquit that he needed a pick-me-up before heading off to battle and Yusei would prove a fitting conduit for such a service…


End file.
